RENAN, JOSEPH ERNEST, a renowned French theologian and orientalist, was b. in 1823 at Treguier (Cotes-du-Nord). His first education be received at the hands of the priests who directed the school of his native place. At 16 years of age he was sent to Paris, where he entered the seminary of Abbe Dupanloup to prepare himself for the church. Three years later he went to Issy, and, having completed his philosophical studies there, to St. Sulpice. On leaving this, however, he declared himself unable to follow out the path traced for him. The theological and linguistical studies, to which he had devoted himself with rare industry, had led him to results which did not seem to allow him the exercise of priestly functions in his church. He took the place of repetiteur in a school, and here prepared himself for an academical career. In 1847 his memoir Sur les Langues 8esnitiques (" On the Semitic Languages") obtained the Volney prize; and the following year, another memoir of his, Sur l'Etude du Grec dans l'Occident au Mayen Age (" On the Study of Greek in the West during the Middle Ages"), was crowned. In 1848 he began to publish a periodical, La Lamle de Penser (" Liberty of Thought"), in which he embodied some of his most brilliant essays on theology, philoso phy, philology, history, and the many variegated branches of his studies, which, how ever, were all merely preparatory to the great work for which he concentrated all his energies—viz., the investigation of the origin of Christianity, which, according to him, is as human and natural, and has grown out of the history and circumstances of the times in precisely the same manner as any other event in the records of humanity. His memoir, Sur les Langues Senzitigues, lie expanded in 1855 into a "Astaire Generale dee Langues Semitigues (" General History of the Semitic Languages"), which, with all its shortcomings, is the most methodical and brilliant compilation on the subject. Of the
variety of subjects to which he devoted his time besides, his numerous contributions to the Revue des Deu.v Mondes and the Journal des Debats, bear ample witness. In 1850 he published a historical essay, Sur Avorroes et l'Averroisme, for which he had collected materials on a scientific journey to Italy. In consequence of this he was appointed employe at the imperial library in Paris. He further produced translations of Canticles and the book of Job, with introductions and commentaries (Le Cantigue des Cantigues, etc., 1860, et Le Livre de Job, etc., 1859). In 1860 he was sent by the emperor on a tour of exploration to Syria and Phenicia, the results of which were given to the world in the Mission de Phenice (1864) and other works. On his return he was elected to the chair of Hebrew professorship at the college de France; but his inaugural lecture made him, through its too free handling of theological matters, so obnoxious to those iu power, that his course was first suspended, and finally his professorship was taken from him. His work, La Vie de Jesus, forming Part I. of his Origins du Christianisme, created a profound emotion throughout Europe. An abstract of it, in a more popular form, has been published by him under the title Jesus. Histoire des Apotres (1866), Saint-Paul (1869), Antichrist (1873), and La seconde Generation Chretienne: Les Evangiles (1877), are the subsequent parts in the series. Other works are: Etudes d'Histoire Religieuse (1856); E8sa is de Morale et de Critique (1839); La Reforms intellectuelle et Morale (1872); Dialogues et Il•agments Philosophigues (1876); _Melanges d'Histoire et de Voyages (1878); and his curi ous poem Caliban (1878). Henan was elected a member of the academy in 1878.